Buddhist centers and Buddhist sanghas of every persuasion have long been a part of Buddhist life. New people join the sangha because they want to discover themselves and to realize their inner potential. A couple of questions that often arise are: “Why do I need a center or sangha if I can meditate on my own?” and “How can work in a center help my spiritual development?” To answer these questions it is useful to address our goals and ask ourselves why we need Buddhism in the first place.
When we become members of Diamond Way Buddhism, the task that we set for ourselves is a bit unusual compared to a regular person leading a normal life. When taking refuge in the Four Jewels—Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, and Lama—we direct our focus to where we have possibly never looked before: toward timeless unmaterialistic values, which then become more important to us than all of our previous aspirations. This is not like an opposition—conflict of one’s self or against one’s own culture—but rather provides the opportunity to look at the world from a different perspective, like any other spiritual practice. We use the spiritual heritage of mankind for our development while remaining ethnically native to our own culture and without denying the historical values of our country. Therefore, the Buddhist centers, or social cells, that we create are organizational structures that help us fulfill our main goal: to help people’s development so that they discover their own potential and become more fearless, compassionate, and joyful. Often a center’s function as a community of practitioners is just as important as meditation, our key method of development. In this way sangha—the friends and helpers on the way—is one of the refuge aspects.
Newcomers who join in the teamwork in Diamond Way Buddhist centers bring along their own life experience as they work constructively on some organizational task. Gradually, they move beyond their normal values and motivations. Working in a Buddhist center is not based in samsara since individuals have already let go of their former priorities and have taken refuge in nonmaterial, timeless values. Money, fame, power, prestige—everything that motivates people in the usual world we know—are not important in Buddhism, since these common motivators are based on conditions that appear and disappear. Even life in a human body, which is certainly important to all of us and serves as a necessary condition for reaching enlightenment, is still not a lasting value, since sooner or later we will have to part with it.
What is it that motivates us to spend time, energy, and money to work in Buddhist centers? What is a lasting value? The answer to this question will help us understand the process of Buddhist centers’ self-organization. Freedom-loving people who come to our centers are clearly not motivated by the idea of fulfilling the commands or the will of some god or person. Nevertheless, Buddha’s recommendations—as well as those of the lama, who on the level of this world perception is seen as a buddha in Diamond Way—frequently motivate many of us to indulge in different activities and altruistic work. Though not mandatory, we carry out these recommendations joyfully. They are important to us because the lama, with his vast life experience, undisturbed enlightened view, and compassionate motivation to help others, sees a situation from all perspectives and for many years to come. Thus, following his suggestions is common sense, and it can only help us in the future.
It is likely that many of us have experienced personal doubts about the validity of a lama’s suggestions, have instead acted on the basis of our own ideas, and only later understood that, in the long run, the lama’s recommendations were correct. Testing the lama and developing the confidence that he sees situations better and more clearly than many of us are able, serve as necessary steps on the way toward trust and devotion to the lama. In that sense, the lama can’t be considered a dictator or authoritarian leader whose orders must be followed no matter what, but as a caring teacher only wishing his students well. Lama Ole Nydahl often says that his main task is helping students to become mature, responsible, and free people on their own. Therefore, all of his organizational recommendations serve this purpose. “We need as little organization as possible and as much as necessary,” states Lama Ole, adding, “While staying anti-authoritarian in essence, we preserve organization as an evil necessity.”
Unlike some social and religious groups, a total control of pupils’ lives as it runs through the power vector of the organization is not used here. Rather, one of the key methods for overseeing the centers is inspiration, including personal example. Lama Ole expresses it this way: “My only uplifting method is to praise the student until he or she starts to develop the qualities that have been praised.” Wanting to help a student develop certain qualities, the lama encourages him or her to perform some useful actions that will not bring any fame, money, or power, but rather joy and satisfaction from being able to help others, in addition to creating more freedom and the discovery of new abilities. This method is based on the pure view—the lama’s ability to see the best qualities in each student and to awaken them. Other Diamond Way practitioners develop the same view by meditating, communicating, learning, and eventually using it in organizational activity. Thus there is nothing more useful than the inspiration triggered in others by motivating them to perform actions that are beneficial to all. Inspiration, of course, is impossible without friendship and one another’s trust, both of which need to be sustained in our centers. It is impossible to inspire someone who feels leery about us, just as it is impossible to be inspired by someone for whom we feel aversion. Gratitude for each and every person’s work raises all activity to the highest level, turning it into something significant and bringing long-term benefit to many. Knowledge of how much merit is obtained through working in the dharma and of what a great honor it is to do something for the dharma—for the lama, sangha, and for all beings—adds even more inspiration. If we want to be successful when inviting people to work, our speech has to be as inspiring as possible, for only on such a wavelength will people really be encouraged by it.
It is important to understand that everyone working in the Buddhist centers does so on their own initiative and shares the same goal of doing the job in the best possible way, so that everyone can achieve the fastest and strongest development. This kind of development, which leads to an experience of happiness, is our goal and all activity including organizational activity is based on it. The organization and the structure of centers also function in ways that can serve this purpose. There are no bosses or subordinates in Diamond Way Buddhist centers; no one gives orders or lectures negligent workers as in a commercial organization. There are no penalties or excommunications, with only those restrictions that enable us to function legally. No one can be inspired by orders, threats, or tight control. The usual motivational sources like money or other material rewards are not present and thus are not the sources of inspiration either. Inspiration is born from inner psychological surplus and the desire to share one’s free time, effort, and even resources for a common good. There aren’t many places in the world where establishing retreats is possible, when people pay their own money to come and work on a Buddhist center construction site. While giving away something material, one obtains much more, namely a priceless inner richness (positive karma) that is capable of being transformed into lasting values—the state of liberation and enlightenment. People want to apply themselves and accomplish things. We support all good beginnings by thanking and encouraging people, just as the lama blesses all good intentions offered to him by his students.
Sometimes people ask how decisions can be made and actions can be efficient in an environment free of an organizational and hierarchical framework. Our usual experience of self-organization involves elected or appointed officials, and governing and executive bodies. Diamond Way Buddhist centers have neither fixed memberships nor subordinates carrying out someone else’s orders. Since the key motivation is to do something for others without expecting a reward, an incentive or stimulus that comes with the normal organizational structure will not work here.
Given the success of Diamond Way Buddhism—over six hundred functioning centers in the world and close to one hundred thousand people on the Diamond Way path—it is impossible to deny the effectiveness of our organizational structure. The decision-making process used in Diamond Way centers is often called a meritocracy, where decisions are made either by those who have the most expertise in a given area, or by folks directly working on a task. If they keep the main goal in mind—the highest view, acting out of compassion and the desire to bring maximum benefit to all, bringing the intuition developed through meditation to their work—and are guided by common sense, they can make good decisions most of the time. When in doubt, things can always be discussed with the lama, since he has an unveiled enlightened view and the richest experience in creating and running centers. Folks who have been working by his side for years can help as well. The experience passed from the lama to his students happens on both personal and organizational levels. Since there is no material or other incentive (like pride or envy) moving people up the career ladder in federal and political structures, no greed or attachment driving people in business, or fear forcing people to work under a whip in freedomless societies, there is no egotistical decision-making that is favorable to some and disadvantageous to others. An organizational structure that is based on friendship and trust, where everyone simply wants to make things better, is almost ideal and would be so if practitioners were already buddhas with unveiled views. Since Buddhists are not yet buddhas, this system may malfunction. But these flaws are steps on the way, helping to gather valuable experience.
Sometimes people in centers copy and apply the principles of corporate organization to the center, but this often leads to mistakes. We believe things should be working efficiently, like a clock, and everything should be calculated and economical and it is true! But not all efficiencies are equally useful. Our effectiveness is maturation and growth and cannot be measured by phone bills or time allocated for meetings. In our center work, we don’t compare raw material with the final product on the loading dock. Our product is enlightenment and that is incalculable. We can say that the center works effectively only if there is more development—meaning fearlessness, joy, and compassion— and these are subtle products of the work.
Therefore, all our work, e.g., center building, course organization, and the creation of information fields, are not goals but mere means of reaching our main goal, the creation of a well-functioning society of people capable of being useful for themselves and others, compassionate, happy, and fearless. Organizational structure serves to achieve this goal by creating conditions where everyone can manifest their best.
A chief lawyer of the German Buddhist Center Association once remarked at a meeting that, after twenty-five years of trying to somehow distinguish the main principle of our organization, the only possible conclusion is that no normal schematics can be applied and clearly there are only two known principles: friendship and trust. We can never forget that. Only in the presence of friendship and trust can we work and create things together. Our connections are very important and there is no single efficiency that is worth one destroyed connection.
Adhering to the ethical principles that are present in some other religions that exist in our society, we attempt to preserve them consciously—and not blindly follow the religious classics that were written centuries ago. What is true for sangha activity is also relevant for preserving our family bonds. Understanding that we have a stronger karmic connection with our parents than with anybody else, we can pay them back by supporting and taking care of them. There is no greater joy for parents than seeing independent adult children who have found their own life’s path. There are many examples among our friends who improved their relationships with their families after finding Buddhism; it shows that we have discovered the right approach. Consciously choosing a partner or a spouse helps us to find happiness in relationships. The experience of working with disturbing emotions helps us avoid destructive dramas if a situation changes and partners separate. The conscious decision to have children is in accord with the parents’ responsibility to their children’s upbringing. Thus, freedom in the centers comes around full circle to families and benefiting others.
